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Friday, March 9, 2012

At first, Ilya Kovalchuk did not remember the first time Devils’ fans threw hats on the ice in his honor at Prudential Center.

That came after he scored his first goal as a Devil on Feb. 12, 2010 against Nashville, the go-ahead tally in a 5-2 victory. That came in his fifth game after the Feb. 4, 2010 trade that brought him to New Jersey from Atlanta and the fans were so happy to see him score they treated it as if Kovalchuk had scored three times on that one shot past Pekka Rinne.

“Maybe that’s why I couldn’t score the hat trick for that long,” he joked tonight after being reminded of his first Devil goal.

It took more than two years, but the hats came raining onto the ice for the traditional reason tonight after Kovalchuk scored his third goal in a 5-1 win over the Islanders.

“Great night. Well deserved,” Devils coach Pete DeBoer said of Kovalchuk's hat trick. “This guy has shown up to work every night for us this year.”

It was the second hat trick of the season and as a Devil for Kovalchuk, but his first on home ice. He also scored three goals in a 4-1 win in Buffalo on Feb. 14.

After that, he went nine games without scoring, but now has four in the last two games to increase his season total to a team-high 29.

“I liked his play even when he went nine games without scoring,” DeBoer insisted. “Every night he’s been a threat for me for the other team. He’s creating offense or room or opportunities. So, the difference between the nights he gets one and the nights he doesn’t aren’t real big other than a little luck around the net and maybe a little more of a shot mentality.”

Kovalchuk has defiinitely had that shot mentality the last two games. After having a goal, an assist and eight shots on goal in Tuesday's 4-1 win over the Rangers, Kovalchuk had four shots -- and the three goals -- tonight. He also missed the net with three shots and had two blocked.

“You guys weren’t asking me a lot of questions about me not scoring, so I don’t think I was looking that bad," Kovalchuk said. "But I got here to score goals and make plays for my team and try to make my team win. So, that’s what I’m doing and right now we feel very comfortable. The Rangers game was a big test for us. They’re on top in our conference. It’s a big rivalry game and after those games usually you got that extra jump for sure.”

Kovalchuk said after Tuesday's win that he decided "I’ll be a shooter again" after he had been guilty of overpassing a bit in Sunday's 1-0 loss to the Islanders. His linemates can see the difference.

“I’ve noticed he’s been shooting more the last couple of games, which is great,” said Zach Parise, who assisted on two of Kovalchuk’s three goals. “We all want him to have that scoring confidence. We all know how dangerous he is when he gets hot. He’s got such a good shot that he should be shooting all the time, but I think at the same time he’s a really underrated passer too. So, I’m sure he’ll make the right decisions.”

Kovalchuk has been scoring in bunches in the second half of the season. He had a run of 14 goals in 17 games that culminated with his Valentine's Day hat trick in Buffalo. Now, after that nine-game drought, he appears to have started another tear.

When asked if he is a streaky scorer, Kovalchuk replied, “Let’s not talk about it. We’ll see Saturday what’s going to happen.”

The Devils will face the Islanders for the third time this week on Saturday night at Nassau Coliseum.

Even after the emotional high of Tuesday’s win over the Rangers, the Devils had fresh in their mind the disappointing 1-0 loss to the Islanders on Sunday and wanted to make amends tonight.

After Kovalchuk scored 49 seconds into Tuesday’s 4-1 win over the Rangers, he got the Devils off to another good start Thursday with his goal 8:07 in.

Devils defenseman Mark Fayne made a good play to move down from the right point to keep the play alive after Adam Henrique had lost the puck. Fayne got the puck back to Henrique behind the net and fed Parise in the slot.

Parise passed up an open shot to feed Kovalchuk at the left side of the net. Kovalchuk fired wide left on his first attempt, but the puck caromed back to him off the end boards and he lifted it over goaltender Evgeni Nabokov for his 27th goal of the season.

After that, Parise could sense his linemate was ready to have a big night.

Especially when he gets one early, he’s going to be feeling good the rest of the night,” Parise said.

“It’s always nice to score early,” he said. “It gives you a little extra energy and all of the line started to create chance after chance. On the power play in the first I got a couple of good shots too and missed the net, but I think we were playing really well as a team tonight.”

Kovalchuk scored his second of the night — this one on the power play — 3:33 into the second period to up the Devils’ lead to 2-0.

Kovalchuk drew the power play as he was tripped from behind by Islanders defenseman Steve Staios while driving to the net at 3:19. The Devils didn’t need long to cash in as defenseman Marek Zidlicky made a quick pass from the high slot to Kovalchuk in the left circle for a one-timed blast past Nabokov on the short side.

“It’s nice,” Kovalchuk said. “I used to score a lot of goals from that spot, so hopefully it’s going to come back.”

That was a pass that Kovalchuk and Zidlicky (the assist was his first point as a Devil) worked on in Wednesday’s practice.

“We’ve got to work on all those little details,” Kovalchuk said. “He's a great passer. He passed to me twice exactly the same. First one I missed the net. The 2nd one I hit the net. But the most impressive one to me was the pass under pressure by him to (David Clarkson) at the end there. It wasn't by accident. It says a lot about his vision."

Kovalchuk’s hat trick goal came 8:09 into the third period and only 1:04 after Patrik Elias had made it 3-1 with his rebound goal. Again, it came on a one-timer – this one from the top of the right circle off a feed from Parise out of the right corner.

“He picked those clean those two one-timers, especially the third one,”Parise said. “There’s not a lot of players that can pick a long pass like that clean and beat a goalie clean at the same time. I thought he was really good. He was making great passes all night too. Just we couldn’t score when he was giving it to us, but he was finding the back of the net so it was good.”

Kovalchuk directed the credit right back to Parise.

“Especially when you play with Zach, he’s the hardest-working guy I’ve ever played with and he just battles for the puck and every chance he gets he turns the puck over almost every time and that creates a lot of room and a lot of odd-man rushes,” Kovalchuk said.

Kovalchuk wasn’t sure if his friend, Nabokov, was going to talk to him after he lit him up for his 13th career hat trick.

“I know him very well, so it was kind of friendly of him,” he said. “But I think he made a couple of great saves on me too. But when you get those kind of chances, I don’t think there was one bad goal.”

***Elias was the last Devil to have two hat tricks in one season when he did it in 2001-02.

***The Devils have three hat tricks in their last 12 games. Kovalchuk had his first as a Devil on Feb. 14 in Buffalo and Parise notched the second of his career last Friday in Washington before Kovalchuk got three again tonight.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.